Czech Crystal Vase. Image courtesy of Universal Live Auctions.
NORTHBROOK, Ill. – Universal Live’s May 31 Memorial Day auction features contents of several estates and includes a large quantity of sports memorabilia with opening bids of $5 or less. Internet live bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com.
The 400-lot auction inventory includes memorabilia and art from every major sport, including baseball, basketball, boxing, horseracing, soccer, golf, football and hockey.
Within the hockey section are many lots with a connection to the Chicago Black Hawks. Auctioneer Martin Shape remarked: “The Chicago Black Hawk items will command a lot of attention. It is one of the hottest collectibles in that category.”
A tremendous variety is seen in the general realm of collectibles, which includes rare books, animation cels, watches, toys and dolls, pottery, coins and currency, military, antique furniture, and neon signs. The list of categories continues with jewelry, art, stamps, lamps, pens, art glass, figurines, cutlery, dishes and crystal.
The auction will contain a number of crystal pieces from Czechoslovakia. All have come from the estate of a person who was from the Czech Republic and who had been collecting prior to 1950. The collection, which also incorporates other types of decorative art and antiques, includes (lot 8729817) Bohemia Czech hand-painted decanter; (lot 8729783) Czech crystal vase; (lot 8729786) Czech Mendel Brothers Deco tea set; (lot 8729677) European folk art fox pitcher; (lot 8729708) a Minton 43-piece dinner set; and (lot 8720139) a rare, hand-made Charles Martel and Richard Synek chess set.
For additional information on any lot in the sale, call Martin Shape at 847-412-1802 or email sales@universallive.com.
Black Hawks Stein. Image courtesy of Universal Live Auctions. Minton Dish Set. Image courtesy of Universal Live Auctions. European Folk Art Fox Pitcher. Image courtesy of Universal Live Auctions. Brass and Marble Bed. Image courtesy of Universal Live Auctions. Rare hand made Charles Martel and Richard Synek chess set. Image courtesy of Universal Live Auctions.
Whitney Museum of American Art, 2010 image by Gryffindor, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, obtained through Wikipedia. NEW YORK (AP) – The Whitney Museum of American Art will break ground on a new museum in downtown Manhattan in 2011.
The museum’s board Tuesday night unanimously approved the construction of the Renzo Piano-designed building at the entrance to the High Line promenade. It said the six-story, asymmetrical, metal-clad museum will provide “essential new space” for the Whitney’s holdings.
The museum’s current Madison Avenue location can display only 150 works at a time from its 18,000-piece permanent collection.
The museum has raised $372 million of the $680 million project. It’s expected to be completed in 2015.
The board also agreed to continue discussions with the Metropolitan Museum of Art about the potential use of the uptown museum.
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Online: www.whitney.org
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
STOCKHOLM — Police say three masked gunmen have stolen jewelry worth 12 million kronor ($1.5 million) from one of Sweden’s most prominent auction houses.
Police spokeswoman Christina Johansson says the thieves entered Stockholm’s Bukowskis auction house in broad daylight Thursday. They collected the valuables and fled in a car, which was found later in the center of the city.
Bukowskis spokeswoman Charlotte Bergstrand says about 300 pieces of jewelry were on display ahead of an auction and the thieves took “most of it.”
No one was injured in the robbery, but several people who witnessed it were treated for shock.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Rookwood’s impressed logo, date, shape number and artist Kataro Shirayamadani’s signature are on the bottom of this 5 1/2-inch vase. It has a $2,000-$3,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Treadway Gallery.
CINCINNATI – Climate change isn’t always about the weather. The climate of the antique market is constantly changing, and Don Treadway of Treadway Gallery is attempting to adjust the thermostat to keep his customers comfortable. Results will be gauged Saturday, June 5, when Treadway conducts his annual Decorative Arts auction at the historic Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal.
This major sale, which begins at 10 a.m. Central, includes more than 500 lots, slimmed down a bit from previous Treadway auctions. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
“It’s sort of a sale for the times,” said Treadway, describing the market for antiques as “dicey.”
“Great things are still in demand, the middle is difficult,” said Treadway. “Acknowledging this, we have been particularly stingy with reserves.”
Treadway said saw at his recent auction in Chicago a willingness among buyers to pay fair prices for good items. “So don’t give me something encumbered with a reserve,” he said.
Reflecting the summertime feel of the auction are two fine Rookwood vases that will sell in the first half hour. A graceful bulbous shape vase, 5 1/2 inches high by 4 inches wide, dated 1894 and decorated with sunflowers by Kataro Shirayamadani has a $2,000-$3,000 estimate. A 15-inch-tall Rookwood vase with a Vellum glaze and a finely painted landscape of birch trees by a lake shore, done by Lenore Asbury in 1918, is expected to sell for $3,500-$4,500. A Rookwood Vellum plaque picturing a Venetian boat scene by Ed Diers has a $15,000-$20,000 estimate.
Other Rookwood artists whose works will be available at the auction are E.T. Hurley, Sallie Coyne, J.D. Wareham, Carl Schmidt and Lorinda Epply.
In addition to the featured Rookwood pottery, Treadway will offer Rozane, Weller, Owens, Roseville, with the emphasis on Ohio pottery.
Also included are many examples of Moorcroft, Charley Vyse, Martin Brothers, Royal Doulton, Lachenal, Zsolnay, Ruskin and Bigot.
Buyers will find numerous examples of Arts and Crafts pottery such as Van Briggle, Teco, Wheatley, Fulper, Dedham, several pieces of Newcomb and metalwork by Dirk Van Erp. There is also a collection of WMF metalwork including several rare examples.
American and European art glass includes fine examples by L.C. Tiffany, Tiffany Studios, Gallé, Daum, Muller and Rene Lalique.
A selection of graphic works by Leon Dolice and Gustav Klimt are also listed along with a fine Pedro Lemos pastel. Other artists include John Weis, Victor Casenelli, William Meuttman and Werner Drewes There are several fine Asian vases.
As always, everything is guaranteed, noted Treadway.
For details call Treadway Gallery at 513-321-6742.
A finely painted landscape by Lenore Asbury is covered with a Vellum glaze. The 15-inch Rookwood vase, which is dated 1918, has a $3,500-$4,500 estimate. Image courtesy of Treadway Gallery. ‘On the Riva’ is the title of this Venetian scene painted on a Rookwood Vellum glaze plaque by Ed Diers. It is 20 1/2 inches by 15 inches, including frame. The estimate is $15,000-$20,000. Image courtesy of Treadway Gallery. The bronze base of this Tiffany Studios lamp is an unusual form. Topped with a leaded glass shade in the Pomegranate pattern, the lamp is estimated at $15,000-$20,000. Image courtesy of Treadway Gallery. Rookwood artist Grace Young titled this portrait ‘Ute Squaw + Papoose,’ which she painted on an 11-inch vase dated 1898. This classic example of Rookwood Standard glaze has a $6,000-$8,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Treadway Gallery.
NEW YORK (AP) – Online visitors to the World Trade Center site will be able to explore the site with a click of the mouse thanks to a partnership between the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum and Google Earth.
Museum officials said Wednesday that the 3-D model will help the public visualize the memorial and its lower Manhattan setting. Visitors will be able to zoom in and look at each tree and cobblestone or zoom out and look at the entire project.
In-person visitors to the museum will see recreations of the vigils and makeshift memorials that sprang up around the city after the attacks. They also will see portraits of the victims.
The museum is scheduled to open in 2012.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Rare and important, this 14 3/8-inch Overbeck vase is carved with the profiles of three women walking amid stylized flowers. The work of sisters Elizabeth and Mary Frances Overbeck, the vase is estimated at $12,000-$17,000. Image courtesy of the Auctions at Rookwood. CINCINNATI – The Auctions at Rookwood will present art pottery and art glass treasures with Keramics 2010 on Saturday, June 5, and Rookwood XX on Sunday, June 6. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding for both auctions, which begin at 10 a.m. Eastern both days.
This marks the first time the annual sales will be sponsored by and conducted at Rookwood Pottery Co. at its facility near downtown Cincinnati. Last November Rookwood Pottery assumed the art pottery auctions conducted for many years by Cincinnati Art Galleries.
“It’s very good sale and we’ve tried to be conservative with the pricing. We hope customers appreciate that and come spend some money,” said Riley Hummler, director of auctions at Rookwood Pottery.
As in past Cincinnati auctions, the first day will be devoted to art pottery other than Rookwood. In recent years art glass has been added to the mix.
An outstanding Overbeck pottery vase carved with the profiles of three women walking amid stylized flowers will come up early in Saturday’s auction. Done by Elizabeth and Mary Francis Overbeck, the 14 3/8-inch vase bears the incised Overbeck logo along with the artists’ incised initials. In excellent original condition, except for light crazing, the vase has a $12,000-$15,000 estimate.
A rare Weller vase, based on a painting by Childe Hassam, pictures a nude female bather on a rocky seaside cliff done in Hudson Perfecto or Silvertone colors. The 11-inch vase bears an impressed Weller mark in block letters. It carries a $6,000-$8,000 estimate.
“The figure and background are three dimensional and may be cast but we have never seen another example. We do not know if Weller made more of these but this is the sole example that we have encountered,” states the auction catalog.
An impressive Daum Nancy cameo glass lamp, the shade and base exhibiting frilly cockscomb flower heads, the blooms supported by woody stems lined with foliage, will also be sold Saturday. The shade measures 12 3/4 inches in diameter and displays the Daum Nancy signature with the Cross of Lorraine. The wrought iron arms are each tipped with a single ginkgo leaf. The lamp is 20 inches high and has a $15,000-$20,000 estimate.
A fine paperweight vase created by Mark Peiser in 1979 is an example of the contemporary glass at the auction. Fashioned from Wisteria blue glass, the vase features a tropical theme showing two palm trees on the front and a solitary palm tree on the obverse. The trees tower over a speckled sandy shore graced by tiny white and yellow flowers peeking through tall grasses. Within the bottom of the vase, a pool of cobalt blue imitates a pool of water. The early signed Peiser vase carries a $10,000-$15,000 estimate.
Headlining Rookwood XX is a rare Iris glaze vase with Art Nouveau tulip decoration done by Kataro Shirayamadani in 1900. Its yellow flowers, done in heavy slip, are nicely contrasted against the milky white ground. Marks include the Rookwood logo and flames indicating 1900 along with special shape number S 1656. There are also remnants of the red acquisition numbers used by the Cincinnati Art Museum for pieces on loan from Rookwood. “Rookwood thought enough of this vase to lend it to the CAM and it is also possible that it may have made its way to Paris for the 1900 Expo,” notes the auction catalog. In excellent original condition with a bit of crazing, the 13 1/8-inch vase is expected to sell for $9,000-$12,000.
Large white poppies adorn an 8 1/2-inch Iris glaze vase decorated by noted Rookwood artist Carl Schmidt in 1904. This vase has a $3,000-$4,000 estimate.
The sale will take place at Rookwood Pottery, 1920 Race Street, in the historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood near downtown Cincinnati.
Hummler said he expects to encounter some logistical and emotional hurdles in staging the auctions at a whole new venue, but with the customers’ patience believes the sale will go smoothly.
More than 500 lots are included in the Keramics 2010 auction Saturday. The Rookwood XX sale on Sunday has approximately 400 lots.
Kataro Shirayamadani decorated this rare Iris glaze vase with Art Nouveau tulips early in his career at Rookwood. The 13 1/8-inch vase is dated 1900 and is estimated at $9,000-$12,000. Image courtesy of the Auctions at Rookwood. Rookwood’s Carl Schmidt decorated this 8 1/2-inch vase with large, flamboyant white poppies. The Iris Glaze vase is dated 1904 and has a $3,000-$4.000 estimate. Image courtesy of the Auctions at Rookwood. Standing 20 inches high, this impressive cameo glass lamp is signed Daum Nancy with the Cross or Lorraine. It has a $15,000-$20,000 estimate. Image courtesy of the Auctions at Rookwood. The scene on this rare Weller 11-inch vase is based on a painting by American Impressionist artist Childe Hassam that pictures a nude female bather on a seaside cliff. Marked ‘Weller’ in block letters, the vase, has a $6,000-$8,000 estimate. Image courtesy of the Auctions at Rookwood. Mark Peiser created the decoration for this 1979 paperweight vase using Wisteria blue glass. The 9 1/2-high signed vase has a $10,000-$15,000 estimate. Image courtesy of the Auctions at Rookwood.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) – A porous, vase-like sculpture of bronze rods is planned for the Huron River in the University of Michigan’s Nichols Arboretum.
Artist William Dennisuk’s sculpture is scheduled to be installed next week on the river in Ann Arbor. He says it draws attention to “our relationship with water, and by extension, the larger environment.”
Dennisuk spent eight months tailoring the project to meet city and state environmental standards.
The sculpture is part of Dennisuk’s three-phase Vessel Project. In late April, the first phase was installed outside the College of Engineering on North Campus. A second is being installed Wednesday afternoon in Gallup Park.
The sculptures will be on display through October.
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Online:
University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Head of Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (69 B.C.-30 B.C.) , last pharaoh of Egypt, from the Altes Museum Collection, Berlin. Photo by Louis le Grand, Wikimedia Commons. ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) – Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago.
The international team is painstakingly excavating one of the richest underwater archaeological sites in the world and retrieving stunning artifacts from the last dynasty to rule over ancient Egypt before the Roman Empire annexed it in 30 B.C.
Using advanced technology, the team is surveying ancient Alexandria’s Royal Quarters, encased deep below the harbor sediment, and confirming the accuracy of descriptions of the city left by Greek geographers and historians more than 2,000 years ago.
Since the early 1990s, the topographical surveys have allowed the team, led by French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, to conquer the harbor’s extremely poor visibility and excavate below the seabed. They are discovering everything from coins and everyday objects to colossal granite statues of Egypt’s rulers and sunken temples dedicated to their gods.
“It’s a unique site in the world,” said Goddio, who has spent two decades searching for shipwrecks and lost cities below the seas.
The finds from along the Egyptian coast will go on display at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute from June 5 to Jan. 2 in an exhibition titled “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” The exhibition will tour several other North American cities.
Many archaeological sites have been destroyed by man, with statues cut or smashed to pieces. Alexandria’s Royal Quarters _ ports, a cape and islands full of temples, palaces and military outposts _ simply slid into the sea after cataclysmic earthquakes in the fourth and eighth centuries. Goddio’s team found it in 1996. Many of its treasures are completely intact, wrapped in sediment protecting them from the saltwater.
“It’s as it was when it sank,” said Ashraf Abdel-Raouf of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, who is part of the team.
Tuesday’s dive explored the sprawling palace and temple complex where Cleopatra, the last of Egypt’s Greek-speaking Ptolemaic rulers, seduced the Roman general Mark Antony before they committed suicide upon their defeat by Octavian, the future Roman Emperor Augustus.
Dives have taken Goddio and his team to some of the key scenes in the dramatic lives of the couple, including the Timonium, commissioned by Antony after his defeat as a place where he could retreat from the world, though he killed himself before it was completed.
They also found a colossal stone head believed to be of Caesarion, son of Cleopatra and previous lover Julius Caesar, and two sphinxes, one of them probably representing Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII.
Divers photographed a section of the seabed cleared of sediment with a powerful suction device. Their flashlights glowing in the green murk, the divers photographed ruins from a temple to Isis near Cleopatra’s palace on the submerged island of Antirhodos.
Among the massive limestone blocks toppled in the fourth century was a huge quartzite block with an engraving of a pharaoh. An inscription indicates it depicts Seti I, father of Ramses II.
“We’ve found many pharaonic objects that were brought from Heliopolis, in what is now Cairo,” said Abdel-Raouf. “So, the Ptolemaic rulers re-used pharonic objects to construct their buildings.”
On the boat’s deck, researchers displayed some small recent finds: imported ceramics and local copies, a statuette of a pharaoh, bronze ritual vessels, amulets barely bigger than a fingernail, and small lead vessels tossed by the poor into the water or buried in the ground as devotions to gods.
Alexandria’s Eastern Harbor was abandoned after another earthquake, in the eighth century, and was left untouched as an open bay _ apart from two 20th century breakwaters _ while modern port construction went ahead in the Western Harbor. That has left the ancient Portus Magnus undisturbed below.
“We have this as an open field for archaeology,” Goddio said.
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Online:
The Franck Goddio Society: http://www.franckgoddio.org
The Franklin Institute: http://www.fi.edu
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
NEW YORK (AP) – Online visitors to the World Trade Center site will be able to explore the site with a click of the mouse thanks to a partnership between the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum and Google Earth. 
